Recovering from a horrific, life-altering tragedy and one, the brave one, getting stuck at a specific stage of grief is the topic of this Jodie Foster film that completes in some sense her Charles-Bronson-of-the-suburbia trilogy that started with a tight Panic Room followed by a loose flight-plan and ends (hopefully) with The Brave One, a film that is the most disappointing of them all because it is the only that seemed to have a soul -- even it only for the first 30 minutes or so.

Jodie Foster's character reacts to a tragedy like a vigilante in The Brave One. She wants to make peace but all she does is make more violence which never quite works out. She is a radio host who discovers the soul of the city (New York City, of course) and has powerful statements about its implicit toughness. She is confused and shows it. Pained and shows it. Lost and shows it. She is scared but is brave. The director though is lost and a in such cases one usually takes the easiest way out. Like the coward one.